


Never Have I Ever

by AnnaofAza



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Ambiguous Pre-Kerberos Shiro/Keith, Drinking Games, Everyone had a crush on Shiro y'all, M/M, Past Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Pining, Seemingly unrequited love, Team Bonding, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26722876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaofAza/pseuds/AnnaofAza
Summary: It was supposed to be a fun game, but secrets have their ways of spilling.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 113





	Never Have I Ever

It's a heavy irony that they're all old enough to fight in an intergalactic war but not old enough to drink unsupervised, but they all indulge Coran's fussing—and Shiro thinks some of the Paladins miss being fussed over, too. 

Even though he's not sure himself, being the only one (except Coran) of Earth drinking age, this isn't a card he wants to play. Besides, he had his first with Matt long before their legality, and Keith, who's staring at him while slurping down a jelly-like substance, knows it. 

In no time, the Paladins start to teach the Alteans Earth drinking games, Coran getting far too invested in the concept of King's Cup. (Almost everyone declines, mostly because the only things aboard are nunvil and the goo some allies plied on them a week earlier.)

It's actually pretty tame, with Pidge resting her head on Hunk's shoulder and Allura dreamily singing some Altean folk songs, when Lance suggests Never Have I Ever.

"Think of it as a team-building exercise," he says optimistically.

From there, Shiro knows probably way too much: Lance has fallen off the Garrison catwalks during military ball proposals, Hunk lit his grandma's favorite pan on fire, Pidge hacked into government records (which isn't a surprise, really), and Coran was in a boy band.

Everyone swaps old Garrison gossip between rounds, mostly corridor kissing (and more) and who had cigarettes under which statue, along with more of the embarrassing ("demoralizing," Hunk says) exercises the officers made them run through. Allura giggles and shares stories of stealing pastries from the kitchen, fleeing almost halfway across the planet in a tiny escape pod. Even Keith mutters a brief anecdote, of when Matt decided record fake alien languages on top of a particularly strict professor's audio lecture notes.

Coran's now swirling a full cup in his hand. "Right, you say Never Have I Ever if you haven't done it?"

"Yes," everyone says, Lance rolling his eyes so hard that he almost falls over.

"All right, all right," Coran says, then hems and has, finally landing on: "Never have I ever... had eyes on Shiro."

Everyone drinks.

"Seriously?" Shiro asks faintly.

Pidge shrugs. "When I was like, eight. You just finished the Jupiter mission. Your face was on TV for weeks, and you knew way more about the turbines and blueprints than any other space cadet I've heard."

"Pretty much all the way through the academy," Lance drawls.

"A bit, in the beginning," Allura admits.

"I've thought about it," Hunk says. "But I had a crush on anyone who was nice to me."

Keith's silent.

Shiro laughs uneasily. "Well. Uh."

"Seriously, this guy was a catch before Voltron," Lance explains to Allura. "Everyone liked him, and I mean _everyone._ There were thirst messages in group chats. Nosebleeds during sparring demonstrations. Sonnets and dirty limericks on the bathroom wall... broke our damn hearts when we all learned he had a boyfriend."

"Oh, I remember," Hunk says. "You had tears in your eyes when you saw them hiding hands on the hallway."

"I did," Lance sighs. "I was so fucking heartbroken. We all had that story. But we never stopped hoping, until you and uhhhh...." Lance glances at Shiro, then swerves like a teenager trying to avoid hitting a squirrel in the road. "You and uh, him, broke it off. Everyone was like... like rabid animals. Until, of course, we knew you were spoken for."

Shiro blinks. "Spoken for?"

Lance gives him a look, disturbingly similar to Professor Montgomery's when he missed an easy question on an exam. "Uhhh. Hello. Keith?"

Keith chokes on his drink.

"Keith?" Shiro manages.

"You don't have to keep the ruse up, you know," Lance says confidingly. Everyone's watching with wide eyes and popcorn. "It was really obvious, you guys going off Garrison property after curfew, Keith getting invited to the friends and family day before the launch..."

"Uh," Shiro says.

"That's enough," Keith warns, fingers tightening around his glass, all the fun sapped out of his face.

Lance keeps going: "But what really sealed it was Kerberos. Saddest fucking shit anywhere. The newscast came, and he—"

And Keith _lunges._

"Keith!"

It takes Shiro, a struggling Coran, a wobbling Hunk, and a now irritated Allura to pull him off of Lance, who's sputtering, "Watch it, hothead! I like my face!"

"I don't," Keith snarls, shirt and his right shoe now drenched in nunvill.

"That's enough, guys. I think everyone had too much tonight, and we should all go to bed and sleep this off," Shiro says in his best leader tone. "Okay? Training will be pushed until the afternoon."

The party—or what's left of it—breaks up. Pidge sashays away, dragging Hunk behind her. Lance is still clutching his face and making moaning sounds, while Allura's scooped Coran up in a piggyback.

Shiro touches Keith's shoulder gently. "Hey. Let's get out of here."

They march down the hallway in silence, Shiro going between thanking the heavens that he's (relatively) sober and then cursing it in the same breath.

"For the record," Keith suddenly blurts, with all the courage of a drunk, "I did like you. But I never would've done anything."

"I believe you," Shiro says, and he does.

"You have to understand, I never would have," Keith keeps going. "I wouldn't have, not with you and Adam and I—I would never. I couldn't have."

"I believe you," Shiro repeats, not knowing what else to say.

Then, softly, like approaching a spooked horse, he asks, "Kerberos?"

Keith's smile is a brittle crack. "I guess that was pretty obvious. I lost it. Punched Iverson. Boom, got expelled, had ten minutes to get my things, stole your hoverbike."

"I gave that to you. In my will."

"Wasn't mine until I graduated, the Garrison said." Keith shrugs, in a familiar 'go to hell, I don't care' gesture, which Shiro hasn't seen in years. "So, stolen. Whatever. I'm over it."

"You are?"

Keith's stepping into his room when he looks at Shiro for the first time tonight. "Yeah. Sorry. You could have had the orphaned, delinquent kid with major anger issues. Dodged that bullet, huh? I'm going to bed."

The door slams behind him.

With a heavy sigh, Shiro touches the cool metal with just the tips of his fingers, then walks away, footsteps echoing like a heart beating too fast.


End file.
